


Lookin' Like That (With Your New Clothes)

by she_is_complicated



Series: Fighters/Lovers [1]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Doug and Evie Support Each Other Like Crazy, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mother-Hen Evie, Oblivious Carlos, Oblivious Jay, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 23:50:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11747739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/she_is_complicated/pseuds/she_is_complicated
Summary: Jay notices that Carlos doesn't really have that much clothing. Or, to be fair, that much of everything. Evie decides to change that. Will Carlos's new clothes make it that much harder for Jay to keep his massive crush hidden?*Takes place in-between Descendants 1 and 2, so Mal hasn't yet tried to change into a 'Lady of the Court'.*





	Lookin' Like That (With Your New Clothes)

“Making it hard for me to breath  
When you’re lookin' like  
Lookin' like  
Lookin' like  
Lookin' like that.  
Why you gotta look like that?”  
\- Jordan Fisher, “Lookin' Like That”  
  
    Jay supposed he could give partial blame (or credit, depending on one’s view) to Evie: after all, she'd made Carlos a slew of new outfits after she went crazy at a fabric shop. Maybe if she hadn't, then Carlos wouldn't have looked so ... _edible_. And as good as he looked in his regular clothes (Evil's sake, the de Vil boy looked drop dead gorgeous just in his pajamas), he looked even better in any of Evie's clothes. Then again, Carlos was the cause for the clothing frenzy. Everyone got something new out of it - his maroon hand-embroidered leather jacket fitted him like a second skin. Mal’s new violet pants had these crazy loops of chain that somehow looked like roses from afar, with zippers that pointed sharp thorns with her design. Ben got a purple and blue tie (sorry, _violet and cobalt_ ) tie - “to show how different he and Mal are, yet they work together so well”. Doug returned to science class with a cardigan that was seemingly unable to be stained or burned. But for Carlos, she went _in_. Her mothering instinct kicked in the second she saw his closet, only filled with enough items to make five individual outfits. Even with the allowance they were being given by Ben to ‘get them on their feet’ while they searched for jobs - an insistence on their part - Carlos still kept the amount of things he had small.  
    Two pairs of shoes. Five outfits total. A sandwich bag-sized amount of toiletries (he even made sure he had a foldable toothbrush, for Evil’s sake). His laptop and charging cord were kept packed in a laptop bag for fast grabs when they weren’t in use. Everything he’d need if he had to run for who-knew how long was accessible within three minutes and twenty seconds, _tops_. Jay had seen him to his grab-and-go routine before, and even with the minimal amount of items Carlos had, he still would need to get underwear and shove his gear in a bag, put on a jacket, etc. He kept his tech gear and extra notebook, filled with blueprints and ideas, in his backpack (in Carlos’s opinion, the extra pockets were worth the ten dollars more), but to get it in quickly and without his cords and wires and clippers and tools stabbing him in the back as he sprinted, it would take him another minute. Hey, Carlos was a genius, for sure. But he wasn’t made of magic.  
    When Evie caught wind of this as not Carlos being thrifty, as they all were inclined to be, but him being inherently afraid that he would be either kicked out or caught by Cruella and he’d need to run, she’d lost it in a _bad_ way. Nearly worse than it had been for Jay when he saw Carlos slipping energy bars and protein paste packs in the side pocket and gotten the truth out of him with (more than a few) hours worth of nagging, threatening, bribing, and plain old guilt.  
    “Carlos is doing _what_?”  
    He felt bad for whoever had been walking past the door at the time - Jay had heard them drop into a dead sprint away from whatever was happening in the dorm like the Evil Queen herself was after them, not her distraught daughter behind heavy oak, crying over a best friend that she considered a brother.  
    Between sobs and rage, she’d promptly marched to Ben and demanded an increase in budget for one day to get all of them clothes. When the fresh-faced King told them in confusion that all the items they bought in town would be paid with the credit card that linked to an account he’d set up specially for them, as long as it had to do with necessities (which was a broad term in Auradon), Evie didn’t even blink. Normally she would have dropped everything and dragged Doug down to the shopping center’s priciest boutique, but she instead marched down to Fabrics by Florie, Doug and Jay in tow.  
    There she collected strong and warm leather, durable denims, comfortable cottons (easy to tear into bandages, in case the need arose), and loads of zippers and metal snaps instead of buttons (they didn’t break as easily), and slammed it down onto the payment counter with her mascara still running. Then she piled more spools of thread than Jay could count into his arms, and stuffed Doug’s arms to the limit with waterproof fabric and nylon. Chains of all widths and lengths were looped around her neck, and a 64-pack of batteries for her sewing machine was gripped with white knuckles. The blue and gold credit card, probably still warm from Ben’s wallet, was dropped down without a second thought. A quick blue pen smear that would have said ‘Evie’ with a dotted heart if she wasn’t in such a state, and then she gathered the boys together and carried more than her third of the load back to the castle. Once in her dorm they were shooed away, citing ‘lots to do’.  
    Three days later, she presented Mal with her skinny leather and nylon pants (“With eight full sized pockets total, and another six for small items!”) and Jay with his new jacket (“It has an extra layer of lining, just in case”). He didn’t see how Doug and Ben received their new clothes, but Doug walked into the cafeteria, new cardigan on, and a faint lip-print on his cheek. Ben wore his new tie and matching handkerchief with pride and his ears tinged pink whenever he looked down, especially once he saw Mal’s new pants.  
    Carlos, however, didn’t receive his items for another full _week_. He hadn’t said a word to anyone about his lack of a gift from Evie - he only complimented Ben on his new accessories, and talked Chemistry with Doug with a greater enthusiasm than usual when he pointed out how acid burns would be less of a concern now. He spent at least half an hour with Mal fawning over her new pants, and looking to locate all of those new pockets. Carlos helped Jay navigate how the inside pockets of his jacket could actually be unsnapped from the interior and snapped back into gloves, helpful for covering scrapes when climbing barbed wire and trees with rough bark.  
    So when the two of them walked into their dorm room after a two hour long study session in the library on Tuesday (Jay had finally mastered all he’d need to know for his Algebra 2 exam, and probably even more for the midterm), they both stood stock still when they saw an emotional Evie standing in Carlos’s closet, hanging up no less than eight Evie Originals, fussing until the sleeves hung just right on the thick black, white, and red patchwork-esque hoodie and cuffing the legs of the new black jeans with grommets punched into the seam of the pockets until they were just so. When she noticed the two of them standing in the doorway like a couple of statues, she’d ushered them inside, gave a proud yet exhausted sounding explanation for each piece of clothing (twelve in all). Then she gave an angry and heartbroken speech to Carlos, gathered him in a long hug, and gone back to her dorm, assumedly to sleep after twelve days of what they guessed was non-stop design and sewing action.  
    Which led them to Jay insisting Carlos model his new clothes. He saw the tight fitting black shirt with an abstract red and white pattern, those skinny jeans, and the voice in the back of his mind told Jay that if he didn’t see Carlos try on those clothes _right that instant_ , he would probably do something much more drastic than just forcing his best friend to try on twelve different items of clothing. Something more like pinning him against the wall, kissing him until he forgot everything but Carlos’s name, and the two of them losing their shirts.  
    It was hard, to say the least, to keep himself together after that little show. He'd managed to choke out a convincing "looks good" and excuse himself quickly, running laps around the track with an unusually red face. He'd also taken a decidedly cold shower.  
    That had been four days ago.  
    At first, Jay didn’t know for sure if Carlos was wearing all Evie Originals, or some of this stuff from back on the Isle. He guessed from seeing his traditional shorts and regular jacket, with the hoodie layered underneath, that he would ease into the idea of having more than five full outfits that he rotated every week slowly. He would see a red shirt, a pair of shorts, his new leather jacket, and shoes, and thought that Carlos would just assimilate into his new clothing options. Jay was fine with that arrangement - it was hard enough to keep himself under control when Carlos was just wearing his normal clothes, which didn’t fit too well in the first place (still too skinny to be considered healthy). If he had been wearing all new Evie clothes? The shirts that fit his lean physique and pants that weren’t too baggy? Jay could lose it completely.  
    Then came Saturday - and with it, Hell.  
    Doug, Evie, and Carlos were nerding it up that morning in he and Carlos’s dorm. He zoned out, playing video games against Mal, until the three of them reminded Jay and Mal of their Chemistry exam that coming Monday.  
    “Shit! I totally forgot. And I haven’t been paying attention in class at all the past three days. And if I bomb the test, then I’ll be benched for the Tuesday night game!” Jay moaned, burying his head in his hands.  
    “Hey,” Carlos said, coming over to sit next to him, threading his fingers softly through Jay’s hair and untangling strands from Jay’s clenching and unclenching hands. “It’ll be okay. I’ll do a study day with you, right now. Maybe even Doug and Evie would join in?” He looked towards them hopefully, finding comfort in Carlos’s hand on his shoulder. The couple nodded eagerly, already figuring out how long it would take all of them to get ready to go to the library. Getting their stuff and a table would be no problem, especially at nine on a Saturday morning, but Carlos and Doug were caffeine addicts. Without the coffee, the two of them wouldn’t be able to help out as well as they would when properly awake. And Jay was still half-asleep, even with his jolt of fear. “Mal, do you want to study with us?”  
    “As much as I would love nothing more, I can’t. I made plans with Ben for something he called ‘brunch’. I think it’s either half-breakfast, half-lunch, or it’s when we take a loaf of bread and go solve a mystery.” The four of them gave the purple-haired girl a strange look. “What? Bread and hunch! Brunch!”  
    “Ohh,” Evie said, not flinching as her blue mascara wand nearly took out her cornea. “Doug, why don’t I go get us that big table in the library, the one near the big copy of Science vs. Magic, and you go on a coffee run? The boys aren’t even dressed yet.” Doug nodded agreement, kissing Evie goodbye and walking out with a slight spring in his step. Jay swore he could have heard him whistling ‘Height Ho’ in the hallway.  
    He felt a pang in his suddenly-hollow chest when he thought about the strong bond of love Doug and Evie shared, and the one Mal and Ben had together. Jay couldn’t drag his eyes away from Carlos when he felt like this -  they’d all made it out of the Isle. Even with this new freedom, the ability to love and date in a way that wasn’t just ‘gang activity’, Jay felt just as caged by his feelings as he had for the past three years on the Isle. He could flirt and wink at girls here and no one would really bat an eye, but if he confessed his feelings to Carlos? He didn’t know what would happen.  
    It must be so easy for Mal and Evie - both had fallen head over heels fast for their respective boyfriends. And they _worked_ together: Mal kept her rebellious side just enough that she could break down Ben’s walls of proper poise. Together, they were working on making both their relationship and the treatment of the Isle of the Lost more serious. Jay knew that Mal was planning on trying to introduce a new shipment of barges for medical supplies and find a way to distribute items equally, rather than how it was now: a pure free-for-all.  
    Evie and Doug were business entrepreneurs, smart enough to make Carlos actually think, and the biggest supporters of each other. They stood up for themselves: their relationship, their backgrounds, and how that didn’t affect their relationship for a second. Doug recognized that Evie _was not her mother_ , that Evie wouldn’t do him wrong. And Evie believed in Doug like she recognized that electrons have a negative charge: it was pure fact.  
    “Jay?” Carlos asked, snapping him out of his romantic musings. “We’ve got to get dressed and grab our stuff if we want to get to the library on time.”  
    “Sure, yeah, of course. You need to shower, or can I?”  
    “You can go ahead, I showered last night.”  
    “Thanks," Jay said, walking into the bathroom and turning the water on. He continued to think over the complications that could occur if he and Carlos ever did ‘get together’. For one, the stigmas.  
    Jay was proud of being bi. And one thing that related both in Auradon and on the Isle, was that no one really cared about someone’s attraction. If you liked boys or girls or both or neither or everyone, it didn’t really matter. People had more important thing to do on the Isle than make fun of someone’s sexuality. And here in Auradon, that was pretty much the same. Actually, if Jay thought harder about it, it seemed like there were more problems with people being LGBTQIA+. The people here loved to _label_. You couldn’t just date (though ‘dating’ on the Isle was just gang activity). You had to be something: straight, gay, bi, pan, ace, aro, _something_. It was like the people here couldn’t keep their noses out of anything. And once they found out at least one of the Isle kids wasn’t straight (Jay wasn’t completely sure on Mal and Carlos. He had a feeling that Mal was pan, but Carlos was still a mystery to him.)? They’d have a field day.  
    Jay would be fine. He’d defended himself since birth. And if someone did have a problem with him, he’d be more than willing to show people more of his Isle side.  
    He worried about Carlos. Something, which, he knew was completely irrational. For all Jay knew, Carlos was either straight as an arrow or ace or aro or all of the above, and wouldn’t ever have considered Jay as something more as a friend. But in the (unlikely) case they did end up together, he thought that people would be mean. And Carlos could take people being mean, or, as much as he hated the word, _cruel_ \- he’d taken people being cruel since he was born. Carlos didn’t like to talk about it, but when he’d change Jay could see the scars and burn marks littering his skin, as abundant as the freckles on his face. Jay just worried that with all the attention their relationship could bring, Carlos would snap.  
    And no one wanted that to happen. Preferably ever.  
    “Jay, c’mon, we’ve got to go!” Carlos’s voice echoed and bounced off the tiles in the bathroom, where Jay had been absent-mindedly staring through the mirror, fully dressed and ready to leave. His mind kept occupying him, like some hitchhiker you couldn’t shake.  
    “Alright, let’s go.”  
    “What took you so long? Your hair doesn’t take _that_ long to do,” Carlos asked, already swinging the door open with a skip in his step.  
    “Speak for yourself,” Jay chuckled, rubbing the black and white hair fondly. “Just got caught up procrastinating.” The lie rolled off his tongue smoothly, but Carlos had known him too long. So long that it was easy for him to distinguish Jay’s lying.  
    The son of Cruella looked at him skeptically. “Don’t lie, Jay.” Jay froze for a split-second. Did he really know what he’d been doing? “I know you started to check yourself out and lost track of time, as per usual.” Carlos laughed, and Jay laughed along with him, hoping his friend didn’t notice how his ears were turning red. That happened every so often, so it was much easier to laugh along sheepishly that to tell Carlos what he’d _actually_ been doing: thinking about their potential relationship and about how hot Carlos looked in his new Evie wardrobe.  
    And could he just say: _damn_. Today, Carlos had dressed completely in his new clothes, from the black and white striped shorts and the loose red shirt that was just tight enough around his arms to show the subtle definition of the strong muscles Jay knew were there. His new leather jacket was wrapped around him, cutting sharp contours in his physique that reminded Jay of the cheekbones, high and sculpted, that framed those dark, deep-set eyes that seemed to follow him into his dreams.  
    “We have arrived,” Carlos said ominously as he motioned to the wide double-doors that led to the library. Jay tried to suppress a deep groan from his chest - as much as he loved checking out Carlos when they were studying (okay, fine - when _Carlos_ was studying, and Jay was slacking off), he wasn’t much for the actual habit of studying. He could learn fine, it was just that how they taught here at Auradon Prep was _so boring_. How could they make histories of war against the Huns in Fairytale Histories and potion study in Chemistry class such a snooze-fest was beyond him.  
    “Hi guys!” Evie waved with a whispered-shout, beckoning them over. “Only twenty minutes late, not bad!” Doug snickered into his coffee cup, disguising it quickly as a cough.  
    “Subtle, Doug.” Carlos remarked, reaching for a cup and draining it quickly. “Ready to learn about some protons?”  
    Jay mustered up the least excited tone he could - normally a simple task, but difficult when faced with Carlos’s hopeful eyes and the tap-tap-tap of him drumming his fingers on the table. “For sure.”  
    For the next three hours, the four poured over textbooks, past homework assignments, and the prep packet Mr. Deley had handed out. Jay felt like he was actually getting the hang of it with the help of the the three uber-nerds, but his concentration faltered every time Carlos would reach up the stacks of books for another chemistry book, revealing a sliver of his toned and freckled torso, or nonchalantly stretch his neck out. When he started tapping a pencil against his lips, slightly sucking at the eraser, Jay had to get up and walk around before he started to _really_ lose it.  
    “Gotta go for a minute,” he said with a grunt, pushing his chair out quickly and walking away to slump against a wall with a water fountain on it, raking a hand through his hair and releasing a deep sigh.  
    Evie, of course, had to follow.  
    “Jay, what’s going on? You’re doing great, don’t give up now! We only have two more chapter sections of the review to go and then we’re all ready for this exam!” She cocked her head quizzically as she contemplated her tall friend. “Is it something else bothering you, besides this test?”  
    “It’s not the test Evie. Well, it’s kinda the test. I would be actually feeling really good about it, but, well…”  
    “Well what?”  
    “It’s Carlos!” Jay exclaimed, pushing off the wall suddenly to move his arms and hands with great animation. “I’ve been into him since the Isle, and now with the new clothes and having even more confidence, especially with the school stuff, I feel like I’m starting to lose it! If he wasn’t so damn oblivious to how I feel about him, I would think that he’s doing some of this stuff on purpose!”  
    “Like what?” Evie asked, not looking surprised at all at Jay’s confession. “I’m not saying that this is real news to me, also. You’ve been in love with him since before you even knew it was love.”  
    “Like with shirt riding up when he gets a book down from a shelf, or with the pencil! It’s all so normal, but when Carlos does it I just feel like my mind’s gonna explode! I really hope we finish up soon, or else I’m gonna do something really stupid.”  
    “Okay,” Evie said slowly, letting her mind process her words before her mouth did. “How about we finish up this section and then I fake a headache? I have extra notes and review stuff for these last couple sections, I can give them to you beforehand so you can still prep but be away from Carlos for a little while?”  
    “That would be awesome,” Jay said, releasing another sigh and giving Evie a nearly bone-crushing hug. “I know this is probably weird for you, but do you think Carlos might like me back?”  
    She stared at him for a solid thirty seconds before busting into giggles. “Oh sweetie! Carlos might be oblivious, but you’re no better! That boy has had his eyes glued to you ever since you punched Harry Hook in the nose after he’d been making fun of Carlos.”  
    Jay could hardly process this. “Wait, what are you saying?”  
    Evie gave him a strong yet good-natured shove on the shoulder. “I’m _saying_ , you dummy, that he’s in love with your stupid ass! Now get out there and make your move!” With that, she strutted back, smirk evident even though he couldn’t see her face.  
    Jay opened and closed his mouth like a fish on dry land. “No way,” he whispered to himself, still in shock.  
    “What’s up?” Carlos suddenly asked, appearing next to him.  
    “Whoa! Where’d you come from?”  
    “Evie said you were getting stressed over something and needed me. Now what’s up?”  
    Jay just stared at Carlos’s face. Stared at his eyes, the same color of the chocolate he grinned for like a madman. Stared at the freckles that he had the urge to give a kiss for each one. Stared at the way his eyebrows grew the same as his hair - roots dark, the rest white. Stared at the long eyelashes and the sharp cheekbones and the soft pink lips.  
    “Jay?” Carlos asked uncertainly, looking at him with less confidence than before. Jay saw it now - the way that Carlos shifted awkwardly from foot to foot when they spent an intimately-long amount of time together. The way this ears and neck were scarlet by the time Mal and Evie finished laughing and Jay had gotten to their table in the cafeteria. The way he looked at him for not just approval, but for praise when he made a complicated invention that seemed only to benefit Jay. Carlos thought Jay would only view him as a friend, so he’d been resigned to showing his love as much as a friend could.  
    It made Jay’s heart swell and break all at once.  
    “Jay, what’s going on?”  
    “What’s going on,” Jay said, finally regaining his voice and turning towards Carlos suddenly, backing him towards a bookshelf slowly, “is that you’ve been wearing that new jacket and it’s making me need to do something _drastic_.”  
    “Dr-drastic?” Carlos stuttered.  
    Jay let a wicked grin spread slowly over his face as he brought his fingers under Carlos’s chin and tilted his face upwards towards his own. “ _Drastic_ ,” he confirmed. He pressed his lips to Carlos’s, watching how Carlos’s eyes immediately closed, mirroring his own. Jay felt his hands reach up to grip his own shoulders and recognized somewhere in the back of his mind that his own spare hand, the one that wasn’t keeping Carlos’s face tipped upwards, was now pressed against the nape of Carlos’s neck, the fingers playing with Carlos’s hair.  
    The kiss was at first as sweet as sugar - both sank into it like a soft pillow. But Carlos tugged the taller boy towards him, keeping him pressed flush against his chest, and Jay responded with a low growl from deep in his chest and kissed Carlos with more intensity than before. Carlos tasted like those chocolate and peanut butter candies he loved and dark, bitter coffee, perfectly balanced. Pressed close to him, as close as he’d been dreaming of for _years_ now, Jay felt the sweet shock start to set in, as his toes curled in his boots and the tiny hairs on his neck stood up.  
    They finally broke apart, both gasping for air but keeping their foreheads pressed together.  
    “When - when did that start?” Carlos managed to choke out, staring deep into Jay’s eyes.  
    “Since before we left the Isle. But it got harder, especially once Evie made those new clothes for you.”  
    “For me?” Carlos gave a wheezing laugh, tugging Jay’s jacket (and therefore Jay himself) closer. “What about this new jacket? I’ve been studying the history of a freaking _spinning wheel_ for two weeks straight to keep calm after this leather sin came onto the scene!”  
    “Very funny,” Jay said, dropping his hand from Carlos’s chin and wrapping it around his waist. “I thought you would see through me, everyday since Evie’s new additions to your wardrobe.”  
    “Well, clearly I didn’t.”  
    “Maybe it’s a good thing,” Jay said, feeling Carlos drag a hand down his back and suppressing a shudder. “It was fun to see you so surprised.”  
    “If I didn’t love you, I’d hate you purely on that comment.”  
    Jay chuckled, pressing another kiss to a freckle right above his right eyebrow - one that always annoyed him in that it was just _slightly_ off-center. “I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This was my first fanfic for Descendants, but Jaylos is absolutely my favorite ship in the fandom. Any and all comments or suggestions on how to improve my work is greatly appreciated!! <3<3<3


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